The ANU School of Music Community Music Centre is now well ahead of the pack in making music education widely accessible. 

The program received a community outreach grant of more than $550,000 from ArtsACT, which has led to a rebranding of the former Open School of Music as the ANU Community Music Centre, signalling a shift towards providing more opportunities for adults, women, gender-diverse individuals and other minority groups.

Also, the centre’s convenor, Jennifer Binovec, says, music should never be never limited by age, time, background or experience, so increasing the visibility of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander music and musicians is an important thrust.

Binovec, a graduate clarinet and sax instrumentalist from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, has been the deputy director and head of Woodwind, Brass and Percussion at the Riverina Conservatorium of Music, a performer with the NZ Opera Orchestra, a music teacher in Coonabarabran and, for four years, a teacher and performer in Prague.

A researcher at the School of Music since 2020, she is spending more time behind a computer doing admin these days, but was on the ground when the original community outreach programs were conceived during and in-between lockdowns.

She likes to attend the enormously popular community rock concerts, but says: “My role is behind a screen and answering emails.”

“We’ve had just five months and now 15 programs have been launched,” she tells me with pride. 

So far they’ve engaged about 50 professional tutors, all well-known musicians from the immediate region.

One of the most in-demand, The Community Rock School directed by Micha Formin, was carried over from earlier cycles because it was so popular.

“There are so many adult musicians who want to be involved in playing a band, coming back to music or continuing music,” Binovec says, explaining that they’ve had participants ranging up to 82 years, some of whom have played in a band, but others with no background. 

The rock school takes place on Saturdays, with a five-week course. 

Later in the year they’ll be running a 10-week course culminating in a performance at Smiths Alternative and it’s already attracting participants.

Another very well-known initiative is Sing With Toby – that’s Toby Cole, of course, who, with the support of the School of Music and Tuggeranong Arts Centre, has started a choir for the Tuggeranong region that has around 30 regular members performing concerts around the community.

On a different note is the CATS (Creative Oral and Theory Skills) course, an advancement from an earlier program that had focused on just classical and some jazz theory. This now involves intensive classes on Saturday mornings. 

There’s also a composition stream involving about 12 weekly participants, ranging from 10 to 60 years.

All up, around 200 people attend each week across Canberra.

Details of programs and the 2024 term dates at music.cass.anu.edu.au